Search form

Authors
of a new report say the nation's water supply that helps to produce
electricity will not be able to keep up with future U.S. energy demands
if population and climate change trends continue at their current pace.

About 97 percent of the nation's electricity currently comes from thermoelectric or
hydroelectric generators, which rely on a massive amount of water to
produce electricity, according to the report issued Thursday by the
Massachusetts-based Civil Society Institute (CSI), a non-profit think
tank. The report was prepared by Synapse Energy Economics, Inc., a
consulting group focused on energy, environmental and economic topics.

Every
day, coal-fired power plants across the country withdraw a collective
85 billion gallons of water, and nuclear plants pull out 45 billion
gallons, the report showed. Natural gas plants also suck up 7 billion
gallons of water daily.

On top of that, large quantities of H2O are needed on a daily basis for coal mining and the hydraulic
fracturing, or fracking, process for natural gas.

The future use of
thermoelectric power plants is expected to surge in order
to stay in line with the electricity demands of a growing U.S. population on
track to increase by another 100 million people by 2060, according to the
U.S. Energy Information Administration. The nation's available water
supply, which is already shrinking in areas of the country, simply
can't handle those increased electricity needs, the report's authors noted.

Terri
Treacy, conservation field representative with the Sierra Club Illinois
Chapter, said the report raised many of the same concerns that Illinois
environmentalists have about the energy industry's impact on fresh water in the state.

For
example, each coal mine in Illinois with a coal-cleaning processing
facility uses anywhere from 500,000 gallons to nearly two million
gallons of fresh water a day, she said.

"That water is permanently polluted from that cleaning process," she stressed.

Climate change, water shortages and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) are also projected to have a major impact on water-intensive energy generation in the future.

"Failure to address these constraints now is bound to lead to further
intersectoral conflicts and forced plant shutdowns that will jeopardize
electricity production and constrain economic growth in the future," the report reads.

The
CCS process, which may become more popular to help curb CO2 emission
from large industrial sources, boosts water consumption rates for existing coal plants by 83 percent and
natural gas plants by 91 percent, according to the report. As such, plants with CSS technologies
may have a hard time operating during droughts and heat waves, as well
as in places where available water is already scarce.

Climate change is also expected to take a toll on the country's water resources
by altering where and how precipitation will occur. Rising
temperatures that come with climate change also mean more running air conditioners. The increased energy use will cause power plants to run less
efficiently and require more water for cooling.

Overall, continuing to rely on water-thirsty energy production "puts
consumers and regional economies at risk of interruptions in electricity
supply or on the hook for costly infrastructure investments," CSI's Senior Energy Analyst Grant Smith said in a statement. "To
ensure a reliable, cost-effective supply of energy, these water-related
risks must be fully accounted for in energy planning and regulation. Once
the environmental costs of conventional fuels are recognized, it
becomes clear that energy efficiency and renewable energy are bargains
by comparison."

Emily Rosenwasser, a spokeswoman with the
Sierra Club's Beyond Coal Campaign, stressed one of the report's takeaways: there is no safe way to burn coal.

"Water safety and thermal pollution issues that
occur when coal plants are sucking up water in drought-stricken regions
highlight our need to move beyond coal and invest in clean energy that
doesn't pollute our water and our air," she added.